Joanna Rajkowska at Museum of Modern Art Warsaw, 25 March – 18 June 2017

Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw presents The Beguiling Siren is Thy Crest, an exhibition of international historic and contemporary artists, delving into the cultural connotations of the siren, her potential as a symbol of Warsaw but also as different takes on hybridity, national identity and mythology.

 

For more information on the exhibition please click here

 

The exhibition will include Joanna Rajkowska’s work, Sumpfstadt or Swamptown, which refers to a grassed area in Berlin known as Schlossplatz, formerly occupied by the Palast der Republik (Palace of the Republic). Built on the site of the Berlin City Palace, itself heavily damaged during WWII, it was eventually demolished after the German reunification as a building emblematic of the GDR regime. Despite the Bundestag having already voted for the Prussian-era Berlin City Palace to be rebuilt, Rajkowska proposed that this huge area be returned to its original, prehistorical state – to the marshes. Inaccessible to people, this swampy wetland would be inhabited by wild birds and animals, and would be planted with trees, grasses, rushes, bulrushes, sedges and moss. Carefully designed by landscape architects, it would recall the mysterious spots familiar from Romantic paintings – with fallen trees and rocks protruding from water. The artist references in particular the paintings of Caspar David Friedrich (1774 – 1840), whose concept of nature was described by the French sculptor David d’Angers (1788–1856) as “the tragedy of landscape”.

 

For more information on Joanna Rajkowska please click here

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